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Here is a comparison shot of how much difference the light makes in the color of corals. The first picture was taken several weeks ago with 2:1 RB-CW at 50%. The second picture with 2:1 RB-CW at 40%-30% and all UV/Red/Green on at max (not dimmable yet).

The second picture looks darker because of green algae covering rocks after feeding too heavy for a while. I set the white balance for both pictures separately as best I could.

It looks like the coral is liking the new lights, because as soon as they turned on, it extended its polyps like never before.

Sure. Pretty much the entire design is on page 4 of this build thread (and I copied the frame-and-board design from Scuzy's build by the way). I used 1.5"x0.75" for most of the wood frame and 1.5"x1.5" for the double-thick supports. The wooden boards on the outside are made of the thinnest MDF boards. I used three layers of Kilz Premium Primer and then two more layers of Behr Premium Plus Enamel to ensure water will not be able to get into the wood.

I posted the following in a thread about DIY LED builds being worth it, but it can't hurt to put in in this thread as well:

The same amount of LED's using Radions would have cost me about $1800, so I saved about 50%. This is taking into account only using 3 Radions which would lead to some spotlighting. I have spread 96 LED's over 6 modules, leaving me with much better coverage.

I am looking to add the last couple of fish to the tank and am trying to choose between a number of fish. I'd like to hear what you guys think:

Current fish list:

1x Kole Tang

1x Banggai Cardinal

1x Royal Gramma

2x McCosker's flasher wrasse

2x Clown fish

1x Red lip blennie

1x Yellow Watchman Goby

Two fish I will definitely add once the tank is fully matured:

Copperband Butterfly fish

Mandarin

I think with this list I can only add either one more Tang or two dwarf angels. With the copperband being a yellow-ish color, I'd like the other tang/angel to be either red or blue. These are the fish I am currently considering:

Everything looks great. Really like the rock structure. However are you still running the overflow with filter media? Seems like it won't only be a pita for maintenance, especially since you only have access from the front, but a nice spot for all sorts of bad things to accumulate. There are a bunch of threads on quieting down an overflow.

I kind of go back and forth about doing that. I use it as a pre-filter for when I clean my glass for example. With the new canopy it is really easy to get to, so all I need to do it rinse it out every other day or so. Getting the filter sock in the sump replaced is a lot more work, so it works out well.

Been a long time since my last update. Partly because I have been travelling a lot and partly because I have been struggling with the tank (probably because of the travel).

Unfortunately this little guy did not make it. It was eating a little in the QT tank, but never ate well. In the DT it had to compete for food, which it didn't, so I made a little feeder box for him. He picked at it a little, but still would not eat. I tried five different types of food, garlic, different feeders but nothing worked. He was lively and unafraid, but just would not eat...

Hesitant to get another one, unless I see one at the LFS that eats like a pig.

Other than that, as you likely spotted in the picture, I have been battling cyano. I think it was caused by an anemone that decided to plug itself so deep into the rock that it could not find it way out and melted. I had a PO4 spike for a day or two which disappeared soon after I added GFO. This also hit the Acans pretty hard. Two little colonies died, but I think I managed to save the other three. Mushrooms and Zoa's were unaffected.

I now have GFO and Carbon running 24/7 and PO4 has been undetectable since. The cyano is slowly disappearing. I also realized that my new lighting has too much red, so I reduced the time for the LED 'specials' down to 3 hours per day. I also make sure to prep all three 5g ATO tanks with dKH buffer and Iodine and any other additives before I leave for my trips. This way my wife only has to move the intake hose to a new tank and all levels stay stable.

All other fish are doing great. The clowns are growing fast, new Hippo tang and Kole tang have become best friends, Goby and his buddy the Randall are working their cave day and night and all of them eat anything I put in front of them.

Another thing that I have not talked about yet is a plan I have been toying with for the last year or so. We are thinking about building a second story on the house. Of all the houses in our neighborhood, our house has the smallest floorplan, which means we can add footage without pricing ourselves out of the range. Also, if we put a second story on the house and build a little balcony, this will open up to us:

It is currently blocked by a fence and tree, but from the second floor the view is open. Both front and back will have a view of the mountain range.

Most importantly, of course, it will allow for a dedicated fish room!! I will have to convince my wife of this, but I think I have a plan that cannot fail: A wine cellar... I will make a nice quiet room with a couple of seats, book case, wine coolers and no TV. Through one of the walls I will poke a hole for the reef tank that will be in the adjourning room with a much bigger refugium, frag tank and easier access to everything. I even should have enough room left for a freshwater tank with Discus fish which I used to have and would love to have again.

It will take a while before we bring up the courage to shell out $100K+ for the addition, but I hope I can make it work...

Nice work, can you post a close up of the connectors that you used to interconnect the LEDs (heatsinks) and then the connectors that you are using to connect the drivers and controller.

Btw, I had my brother program a controller similar to the boostled one that has the functionality that you mentioned about fade in then fade out at a set % then shut off.

I will try to upload it to my controller to make sure it works and send it to you if you want it. I have to edit it anyway since he had to program it from scratch and build the prototype (masters class in programming). It ended up being cheaper to just reprogram the boostled one so that's what I am planning to do.

I am working on the rail for my build right now. How are dealing with the wiring with moving the LEDs? I got a canopy similar to yours. 1x2 pine from HP and MDF skin that is just connected by magnets so I can take the entire skin apart except the back and maybe one side. Planning to mount everything from the back panel and perhaps the controller on the side. Having a issue with creating something for the controller housing and be watertight.

Right now, I have everything wired to a piece of MDF and terminal strips. I got the solderless LEDs from rapidled.

You'll have to order item numbers: 38302, 38303, 30080 and 30081 to be able to make the connectors. A tip: shave off the locking mechanism otherwise you'll have a hell of a time trying to disconnect. I used a sharp knife and cut off the hard edge.

I think I used 20 gauge wire with a solid copper core, which can easily hold 1A of current.

Removing a module of LED's is easy as can be: disconnect on either side and slide it down the rail to the back of the tank. I used just a simple zinc plated bolt and nut to make the slide. I had concerns about corrosion of the rails and bolts, but with two 6" (stealth) fans blowing softly 24/7, I have yet to see a single drop of water anywhere on the canopy.

As for moving the LED's; just give the wires enough slack between the heatsinks and you can slide them quite a bit without having to disconnect them.
I have found that with 10" of space between the water and the LED's, I have not yet had to move them while working on the tank.

On the driver side I used a simple Euro-Style terminal block for my connectors. You can see it on page 4 of this thread. It is kind of ugly on that side, but it's under the tank behind doors so it'll do. If I ever get my fish room, I'll mount it on a wall and make it look pretty.

Yeah, let me know when you have your Boostled working. I am interested to see it. thx

Nice tank, I have the exact opposite problem as you. My copperband is flourishing....I got it to start eating on white worms and now frozen clam/shrimp/squid. It's the hippo tangs that I can't get to start eating, I've had 3 die in qt, did you qt your hippo?

Yes, Hippo's are Ich magnets! Preventative treatment with copper would not be a bad idea also.

Maybe having a dither fish or two in QT will help get the Hippo more active. Most of my fish were perfectly happy in QT, but the hippo hid behind the pump intake most of the time. Aiming a pipet with food directly at him and blow food into his face got him to take the food. Once he was in the DT he learned quickly who the food-God was (me) and aggressively started eating like every other fish.

The Skunk cleaner shrimp is checking everything out. This guy is the most social animal in the entire tank. He follows me around, jump towards to front glass when get near and loves to clean my cuticles. I am glad my shrimp are now doing this well. I know lots of people do not believe Iodine is required for shrimp to flourish, but I lost 6 shrimp before I started dosing and have not lost one since.

After I realized that an Apogee Quantum sensor will work with a normal multi-meter (and save myself almost $200), I finally got a PAR sensorso I can measure my DIY lighting system. Turns out I was running very low (which I kind of knew, but now I confirmed it). I took the opportunity to see what my light system is capable of. These are the results of running all LED's at 100%:

I am very pleased with being able to get 1000 PAR at surface level and 800 PAR at directly below the surface. It was surprising how much difference in light there is between dark and light spots and how hard it is to detect with the naked eye. I will definitely use these numbers to determine where my corals are going to go.

Note that I am not running at these levels, but now at about 60%-70%. I was running at 50-50-25 (Royal Blue, Royal Blue, Whites), but was getting browning and fading on most of my corals. I am going to bump this to 60-60-50.

Here's my nifty PAR sensor contraption. Used some spare parts from an Eheim pump . Also a nice view of some of the cyano that I am still battling.

Well, something is definitely eating my Acans. I did a little experiment last week with two new Acans I got for cheap. To see if it was water parameters or some kind of predator I decided to protect the acans with a plastic cylinder:

The cylinder was high enough so no fish, save the small clownfish could reach inside, but a shrimp could with some effort. The Acans stayed in this protective shell for over a week with no problems whatsover. Then I removed the shell yesterday and today the Acan on the right had its mouth completely eaten out. Something in the tank has a taste for Acan LordHowensis and only those. My Acan Echinatas are perfectly safe and so is every other coral in the tank... very odd and very annoying because Acan Lords are probably my favorite coral...

On a side note, I am still battling cyano. Noticed yesterday an ugly glob had settled and hid behind my pink birdsnest plug which might have played a part in all this. I blasted all my rock with a turkey baster and made sure all the gunk came out of the crevices. Then I changed my GFO and washed the filter sock. Phosphates are still undetectable and oddly enough the lit sump is cyano free. Crossing fingers that all this will help.